Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I was answering a question on Quora about famous rock musicians who also wrote film scores and the first guy to come to mind was Trevor Rabin from the 80s (and most commercially successful) version of the band Yes.

After the release of very under rated Talk album and subsequent tour, Rabin pretty much packed it in as a touring rock and roller and turned to film scores. He has penned the soundtrack to 40 films since the mid 90s, including Armageddon, Snakes on a Plane and The National Treasure movies. Full list on Wikipedia here.

My impression from some interviews is that Rabin is happy doing film scores and had no intention of returning to rock and roll. However, the Wikipedia entry had these little tidbits:

According to an interview with Rick Wakeman on the 6 February 2010 edition of Wakeman's Planet Rock radio show there is a possibility of Wakeman, Rabin and Jon Anderson getting together to recording a new album. Rabin has already written some new material with Anderson, but the project hasn't yet been confirmed, as they are busy with other commitments.

On 9 July 2010 Rabin accompanied Yes at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and played the encore, Owner Of A Lonely Heart.

In an October 2010 interview, Rabin confirmed that he has finished recording his greatly anticipated instrumental solo album. He plans to release it in a few months time. He also states that Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson and himself are 'Itching' to start recording an album.

OK so WHAT? I think the ultimate fuck you to Steve Howe would be for Jon Anderson to work with Rabin. As you may recall, Anderson had a very serious illness that kept him off the road for a long time, and instead of waiting for him to get better, the other guys did an end run and hired a tribute band singer to replace Anderson.

Reviews have been pretty good but mostly because the band is doing songs Anderson never wanted to play like Machine Messiah from the Drama album - the one Anderson didn't sing on.

There is also no love lost between Rabin and Howe. I think Howe has a major stick up his ass that Rabin took his place in Yes and drove the band to great commercial success.

So yeah, a band with Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman - Yes' best keyboardist (well besides Patrick Moraz) - would be a great big 'eat it' to the other guys and would be an interesting recall of the 80s when there were two Yes' - The Rabin Yes, and the Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe version.

The other thing that made my head spin was this note that Rabin joined the tribute band-singer version of Yes on Owner of a Lonely Heart! Again, WHAT? Along side Steve Howe. Lo and behold I found the fucker on YouTube and even from afar I can feel the tension between those two guitarists.

I will watch with great interest to see if this actually pans out or not.

Friday, January 14, 2011

As I think about the recent announcement that the Black Eyed Peas will perform at the Superbowl soon, I find myself actually longing for the shitfest Who, Stones and Tom Petty performances of recent years.

It's a tough gig - it's all lip synced except the vocals and whatever they can shove a mic in front of after setting up the fireworks displays. For example, the Who gig was only Daltrey's mic and Pete's guitar, and I think the drums - I read that everything else was mimed.

My biggest beef was the song selection, which was basically CIS theme music but a lot of people bitched about Daltrey's voice. Turns out the dude had just gone through throat surgery to remove suspicious growths.

In a CBS TV interview at the beginning of December Daltrey revealed his voice wasn't "performing in a normal way" and friends put him in touch with master throat surgeon Steven Zeitel in Massachusetts in late 2009.

Daltrey says, "It was becoming hard work to sing... He (Zeitel) saw me and told me that he didn't like what he saw."

One week before Christmas in 2009, Daltrey went under the knife, according to RollingStone.com.

The rocker adds, "He took off what he could from the problem area on my vocal cord. He said it wasn't cancer, but it was pre-cancerous, and you have to keep an eye on it.

"(Now) I see him every time after I finish a tour and he swears that he'll keep me singing into my 80s. That might upset some people, but it keeps me happy."

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

If you've kept in tune with the online Rush fan community over the last few tours, you are probably familiar with the Rush Petition website which was just revamped this week in preparation for the upcoming 2011 leg of Rush's Time Machine Tour.

The site was the brainchild of BOS Music co-founder, Rush fan and RIAB reader Skip Daly and his partner-in-crime Al Horta. The two created the site as a means for Rush fans to voice their opinion on which Rush songs they wanted to hear live. It was first launched prior to the Vapor Trails tour back in 2001 and has been re-launched prior to every tour since then.

The band has admitted in interviews that they are familiar with the site and have taken it into consideration when building out their setlists. From the revamped website:http://www.rushpetition.com

My votes were for Jacob's Ladder, The Weapon, Territories, Afterimage and Fly By Night.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Breaking news is that 70s singer songwriter Gerry Rafferty has passed away at age 63. Rafferty battled alcoholism for many years and died this morning after battling a long illness, according to Billboard.com.

In his heyday Rafferty had a few hits that I love to this day: Baker Street, Days Gone Down, and of course, Get It Right Next Time. Prior to going solo, his band Stealers Wheel had a hit with Stuck In The Middle.

The below video for Get It Right Next Time was one of the first videos I remember seeing as a kid, on a show called (I think) Friday Night Videos. I always thought Rafferty looked totally cool and still think the song is fantastic.

(THE MAN has a nasty habit of pulling Gerry Rafferty videos down so enjoy this while you can.)

Various sources yesterday reported that Roger Waters will film all six upcoming London Wall shows for release on DVD. So, that probably narrows down which show David Gilmour will show up to by, oh about six.

This tour has been incredible and although I was only able to catch one performance, I found some excellent HD video of every song and was able to make my own DVD of the whole gig, which ought to tide me over under Waters' official release comes out, probably by next Christmas - my guess.

Here is one of the videos. It's a multi-camera edit from two or three different shows, synced with probably the best bootleg I have heard from the tour. Enjoy: